Wall Street Journal article. No good deed goes unpunished.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123911699635497099.html
Mistakes by American Airlines mechanics and pilots led to the emergency landing of a fire-damaged jet two years ago in St. Louis, according to federal accident investigators.
In the September 2007 nonfatal incident, the American McDonnell Douglas MD-82 had a fire in one of its two engines shortly after takeoff from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, and also suffered hydraulic and electrical malfunctions. The plane with 143 people aboard returned and landed safely at the airport after pilots managed to manually lower the nose gear.
Members of the National Transportation Safety Board said during a hearing in Washington Tuesday that the accident revealed systemic problems with the carrier's maintenance practices. "Why wasn't there a red flag" to identify and track repeated problems that led to the emergency, asked board member Kathryn Higgins. "I find that very troubling."
American Airlines mechanics repeatedly replaced a pneumatic start valve on the left engine before the accident—replacing it six times in 13 days—but failed to get to the bottom of the problem. By using improper procedures to start the engine on the ground, mechanics ended up damaging a mechanism attached to the engine, which sparked the fire that resulted in the emergency.
In addition to those unauthorized procedures, the board's final report cites misguided pilot actions that led to delays in going through an emergency checklist, increasing the risks from the initial engine fire. The board also cited "deficiencies' in the carrier's maintenance oversight as a contributing factor.
American, a unit of AMR Corp., months ago changed some maintenance practices, and it replaced and began modifying certain parts to prevent a repeat of the problems. After the hearing, a spokesman said the company also has enhanced pilot training and increased efforts to audit maintenance reports, partly as a result of lessons learned. Spokesman Tim Wagner said the board criticized employees who failed to follow rules, rather than the procedures themselves.
Still, Tuesday's hearing shined a spotlight on American's operations at a time when the carrier is under heightened scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration. American has had a series of maintenance lapses in the past year, and the FAA is conducting a special audit of the carrier similar to those already finished at some U.S. rivals.
"If this had been a fatal accident," American's maintenance tracking and oversight system "would be facing more scrutiny," said board member Deborah Hersman. "They had multiple times to address the problem," but failed to identify a permanent fix, she said.
The board's staff criticized the pilots for failing to follow emergency procedures, "squandering" nearly two minutes with extraneous tasks, such as dealing with a cockpit door that became unlocked, and failing to properly divide up duties. Some of the crew's actions made the emergency more serious, according to investigators, by causing hydraulic problems.
Board member Robert Sumwalt, a former airline pilot, faulted the crew for a "relaxed and casual attitude," including a failure to adhere to proper checklists and engaging in extraneous talk while taxiing out for takeoff. "They weren't ready to handle what got thrown to them." Sumwalt said.
In spite of their missteps, the experienced pilots on American Airlines Flight 1400 showed "exceptional stick and rudder skills' that allowed the aircraft to land safely, said Mark Rosenker, the board's acting chairman.
The board's final report is likely to have broad implications, partly because it asks the FAA to consider changing training procedures industrytwide to show pilots how to effectively deal with different system failures at the same time. The accident report also urges consideration of modifying the MD-80 family of aircarft to make it easier for pilots to identify midair problems with engine-start valves. And it urges American to reassess its maintenance tracking "and make necessary modifications to the program to correct these shortcomings."
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